Well, we're back online. Not a word what went wrong nor a apology, of course.
Chapter 21
William observed the silent, dead silent crew, standing feet apart, arms behind their backs in their best uniforms. It was a message of respect to the one of their own who was due punishment.
“Gowan,” said William, “Do you know why I have to flog you?”
“Aye, sir; I wouldn’t kill men on the word of a little boy,” said Gowan.
“No, Gowan. You acknowledged the right of pirates to rape our womenfolk and murder all your fellows and the women and children as well as disobeying the king,” said William.
“I never did!” said Gowan.
“Oh, but you did, Gowan,” said William. “Mr. Porkins is still a little boy, but he relays messages from me, and carried an order from me whilst he learns to be an officer in his own right. As I did at his age. And I ordered you to fire. As one of his majesty’s officers, I stand in the place of the king, who can hardly lead every one of his ships to war against enemies, pirates, slavers, and the like. So, you have disobeyed the king. Do you have piratical leanings, Gowan? You know how this pirate killed every man jack on the ship he was sailing. You know how he killed all the men on that peaceful merchantman, raped to death the maid to the lady we rescued, raped her, would probably have raped her little girl if she had been a year or two older, and then set them forth with the expectation of dying in the storm or of thirst. Do you long to rape my wife, Gowan? Or any of the other women? Does it give you a thrill to think of the pirate cutlasses slicing through the bellies of your messmates, which is Snow’s preferred way of killing? Would you stand proudly beside Snow and watch Davy Thorne, your friend, staring at you with reproach in his agony filled eyes as the life goes out of them, and they stare at nothing, the rictus of torture still on his face?”
Gowan was pale, and he heaved dry, having wisely eschewed food before being flogged.
“But I didn’t intend nothin’ of that!” he cried. “I… I just couldn’t kill men, when push came to shove. I’ve allus been on the guns when we took slavers, and didn’t have to get me hands dirty, with the killing.”
“How lucky for you,” said William. “You must have traded favours for that; the rest of us have risked our lives to save life, in fighting slavers. As we risked our lives and our ship to put out of action a filthy piece of dung who I cannot consider a fellow human being, and thereby save the lives of future victims. Do you read the Bible, Gowan?”
“Aye, sir, and it says, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’” said Gowan.
“And later, Jesus speaks out against ‘Ye Pharisees and whited sepulchres.’ Do you know what a whited sepulchre is, Gowan?”
“No, sir,” said Gowan.
“A sepulchre is a burial chamber, Gowan; where the body rots. They are whitewashed to try to keep away flies, and to look more pleasing, but they are still chambers of secret decay. A man who will not stand up for his fellows, nor for women and children, nor for peaceful merchants, and claims righteousness for not being prepared to kill the scum of the earth is a whited sepulchre. And Snow would not have spared you for it, you know, if you had said to him, ‘I killed none of your men,’ he would have said ‘More fool you,’ and would have spitted you on his sword. You froze because you were afraid, and seized on an excuse not to obey, didn’t you?”
“I… yes!” said Gowan, who would rather accept the scorn of his fellows than the blazing contempt in the captain’s eyes.
“There is no shame in being afraid, Gowan,” said William. “We all fear, if not death, then the manner in which we are to die. But you lied about it. I am not going to whip you, Gowan, but you are to consider yourself under arrest, and I am going to discharge you the service. Whipping a man is one thing, but you are too weak to tell the truth and face your fear, too weak to stand up for what is right, and you are too weak for my crew. I will work out what pay should have accrued to you, take your debt from it as the difference, and you will leave the navy at Gibraltar, without a portion of the prize money won by the other crew members who were prepared to fight for right, and therefore get the perks of what goes with valour. Get him out of my sight; I’d as soon flog a buttercup.” He turned to the crew. “We work, we fight as a team of men, each man responsible for the safety of all the others by doing his work, whether that is running about with canteens of water under fire like the women and girls, or making the shot of his life to decapitate a pirate king with more aplomb than ever Robespierre managed with Louis XVI. And a man who will not stand up for his fellows is no man.”
There was a low murmur of assent, and as Gowan was led away, the sailors turned as a body and gave him a slow hand clap.
Gowan would be glad to leave the ship at Gibraltar, but would suffer most when he heard how much prize money he had missed out on. But he had done nothing to earn it, and the tars would recognise that.
“Mr. Price, we men thank you for counting us!” called out Cassie.
“My apologies for the way I worded it, but you girls and women are more use than many a man,” said William.
They had worked like Trojans to help clear up the mess. Any man with any carpentry skill had been employed making the ‘Sparrowhawk’ safe for occupation, and the stern lights were temporarily replaced with cotton mull. It let in some light.
William meanwhile wrote orders for Erskine and Pigeon to go on board and take charge of the ‘Sparrowhawk’ and ‘Nossa Senhora das Flores’ respectively.
“Sir,” said Erskine, “Are you sure you don’t want Scully on the ‘Sparrowhawk?’ After all, if a prize lieutenant is sent back in a lieutenant’s command, he is sometimes offered the command as a regular matter.”
“You’re an ambitious young man, Nat,” said William. “I know John’s mind, and he is happy where he is. He has not been a sailor as long as some of us, and he wants the experience; don’t curl your lip, he is not afraid of responsibility, he just feels he could give more to the navy with a bit more time taking orders, before giving them. He doesn’t have even seven years’ sea time, you know.”
“Oh! I see, sir,” said Erskine. “Yes, under the circumstances, I’d want more experience.”
Scully, in fact, had not as much as three years’ sea time, but had received his promotion on nepotism, jiggery pokery, and doing a favour to the Royal spymaster, Sir William Wickham. It was a secret kept by William, Scully, and Colin, and one of the provisos was that Scully was not to seek promotion until he had six years’ sea time, and Scully was happy with this stricture.
And then they were clawing their way back north towards Gibraltar.
oOoOo
“Deck there! Three vessels!” the call came from aloft.
“Bend on our number and the answer for the day,” said William. “Don’t run them up yet, let’s identify them first.”
“Deck there! British frigates, and I swear one of them is ‘Endeavour!” called the lookout. “Signal on the lead mast; what ship, and challenge!”
“Answer,” said William.
“Signal… 167… 163…578…317.”
“Commodore come on board Frigate,” said William. “Acknowledge; ready the captain’s pinnace. I expect they want to know about the fight with Snow.”
William was surprised not to be given the customary piping to come on board, and frowned as he saluted.
“Ha! I can’t believe you fell for it, Snow!” gloated the rather florid captain of the lead frigate. “You’ll be up on the yard arm before noon, and your flotilla sunk.”
“I don’t quite know how you have made up your mind that I am Snow, when the sloop he took is flying my ship’s pennant over it as a prize. I am William Price, master and commander of the ‘Thetis’ and we destroyed Peter Snow’s pirates and took over the prize they had taken, ‘Nossa Senhora das Flores.’”
“Oh, very easy to say,” sneered William’s captor.
“It’s easy to prove,” said William. “I note you are sailing in company with the ‘Endeavour,’ which is, or was, last I knew, under the command of Captain Mornington.”
“And how would you know that?” snapped the choleric captain.
“Because I have served under Captain Mornington since I passed as lieutenant, until I was given the ‘Thetis’ to command,” said William. “I did not bring my muster book, since I did not think it would be necessary.”
A puffing Captain Mornington heaved himself over the side. He had seen William through his telescope, and had a shrewd idea that the other captain was going to jump to conclusion.
“William, my dear boy!” he said. “Captain Speers, allow me to introduce one of the most brilliant young junior officers I have ever met, and I see he has taken back the ‘Sparrowhawk.’ What’s the other ship?”
“A Portuguese merchantman, sir,” said William, much relieved. “That bastard, Snow, put the only passenger over the side in a hurricane, with her children; we were lucky to be able to rescue them, and left them in the Canaries, and used that to work out the direction Snow would take. I managed to get a crew onto the merchantman, which may not be heavily armed, but we managed to use your tactic of the nutcracker, only from end to end.”
“Well done, Will! I’m sure Captain Speers will offer you refreshments, and you can tell us both all about it.”
“So long as I am not under arrest and about to be hanged for the Captain’s assumption that I am Snow,” said William.
“Oh, nonsense, nonsense, my dear boy, Captain Speers was doubtless joking,” said Mornington.
“You are certain this is William Price?” said Speers.
“Of course I am! Looks like a choir boy, but for the cut on the side of his head here, that he took stopping a pirate dead by ramming it. How’s your lovely lady wife, Will?”
“Oh, she’s as happy as a grig,” said William. “We’re considering buying out the Thetis, since the war is over, as an escort to her father’s merchant fleet, once this cruise catching slavers is over.”
“Delightful girl, you’d never think she was an heiress, as natural as anyone,” said Mornington.
Speers was now sweating; he had nearly hung out of hand a coming young officer who spoke casually of buying out a ship, and whose father-in-law had a fleet of merchant ships. His career would be over if it came out.
“Ha! Jolly well done, taking the ‘Sparrowhawk,’” he said. “Forgive my little test, I am sure you understand?”
“Oh, perfectly, sir,” said William.
Speers sweated more when he suspected that William did.
“Did you make no effort to capture Snow?” he snapped.
“Not really, no,” said William. “Though had I known that ‘Sparrowhawk’ was carrying only nine-pounder stern chasers, I might have been more inclined to consider it. But one of our bow chasers took his head off; you’ll be pleased, Captain Mornington, John Scully managed to get them to menace the quarterdeck.”
“Well, if John had not, Colin would have done,” said Mornington. “Call me ‘Edgar,’ my dear boy, we know each other well enough. Oh, and the port admiral asked to be reminded to Colin, and to find out if he had won any more shooting wagers.”
“Oh, you can tell him that Colin, prize captain on a lugger, with his eight men, took Snow’s then flagship Brig, which was being refitted, and captured Snow for the first time. And his training of his men meant that our first broadside put three balls through the enemy gun ports.”
“How that boy makes such a mess of his noon sights, and can calculate to an inch where to put a cannon ball I do not know,” laughed Edgar Mornington.
“Oh, he can take a noon sight now,” said William. “I’d trust him to take a ship back to Gibraltar now, without making a side trip to Hawaii via Nova Scotia.”
Mornington laughed.
“Well, I am glad he is able to work out where he is, now,” he said. “Well, well! We mustn’t keep you, William; got your prizes to return to Gibraltar, haven’t you, and we’ll get back on our cruise to deal with pirates.”
“I wish you, and Captain Speers, and your other consort, every good luck,” said William. “It’s been very nice to catch up with you.”
“Well, well, you bring me luck; though bringing back a Royal Navy ship won’t get you much prize money, it might get you mentioned in despatches.”
William waited until they were far enough away from the frigates, and hidden by the swell, to be violently sick overboard.
“ʼE wasn’t jokin’ was
ʼe?” said Walden.
“He most certainly was not,” said William, fervently.
“You go below when we gets back aboard, an’ I’ll sent the surgeon to you, for your nerves,” said Walden.
“Damn your eyes, Jeb,” said William, affectionately.
He wanted to wrap his arms around his wife and smell her sweet scent, and know that he was alive to embrace her, and that he was not about to be strung up the yardarm for the hasty judgement of a senior captain.
And William gave fervent thanks that Mornington had been there to vouch for him, and to put enough fear into his senior that William Price was not a helpless young man with no influence.
It was wrong, of course, that influence should count, but count it did. And the wealthy Mr. Price and his wealthy wife were far safer from any vindictive behaviour on the part of more senior officers than Will Price, nominally a gentleman, with vague connections through an aunt to the landed gentry.
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